A Double Standard

Interesting post on a cool blog I just found called sabernomics.com about the disparity in reporting about PED (performance enhancing drugs) between sports.

Just for the sake of fairness, I did a search for "Shawne Merriman nandrolone" and got 691 stories. And I'd bet that if you weren't specific about the drug itself, and just typed "steroid" or "banned substance" you'd get closer to the 128,000 stories I found on Merriman.

Still, baseball does get a lot more LOUD press about steroids - the Merriman scandal was hardly that, and yet everyone wants to murder folks like McGwire, Sosa and of course Barry Bonds.

clipped from www.sabernomics.com

As Sean Forman pointed out the other day, baseball gets much more PED scrutiny from the media than other sports. When Sports Illustrated broke the story about a new steroid ring linked to baseball, football, and other sports, baseball got the most coverage.

Since that time the NBA has had its own mini-scandal that hasn’t garnered much attention. Lindsey Hunter of the Detroit Pistons tested positive for using a banned substance found in diet pills, and received a 10-game suspension. Let’s compare this to John Rocker, who has been accused of taking HGH, and he hasn’t pitched in the major leagues since 2003.

Lindsey Hunter phentermine Google News search: 128 stories

John Rocker HGH Google News search: 239 stories

I don’t know whether this is good news or bad news for MLB.